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Brave Love: Championing the Cause of the Birth Mom

Made to Mother is dedicated to supporting, encouraging and inspiring all mothers. And I believe that one of the greatest unsung mothering heroes is the birth mom. Being a birth mom myself I understand the spectrum of birth mothers that are out there from the drug-addicted or homeless woman to the scared 16 year old or anyone else not ready to be a mother…and every birth mom in between. Birth mothers are not cookie cutters and each of them have their own, unique story. But they do share one, valiant trait; they chose life for the baby inside them, no matter how unwanted or unplanned it was.
Our culture today makes it so easy for a woman to abort; even young teenagers can now get an abortion without their parent’s consent. And what’s worse? The state will pay for it!!! But who pays the emotional price tag? The woman is most always alone in that.
For over ten years I kept secret the fact that I was a birth mom to a little boy 13 years ago, and with it, I held on to fear, shame and self-loathing all those years. But when I finally wrote my book and became honest with my friends and family who had no idea about my past, I was overwhelmed by the weight that was lifted from me and the peace of no longer having to live in the shadow of my secret. And since then, I have been blessed beyond measure to see God use that story and transform it into a beautiful testimony of His endless Grace, provision and healing.
In the time since I have also been able to meet some amazing people and organizations, one of which I want to share today. Brave Love is an incredible nonprofit whose mission is to change the perception of adoption through honest, informative, and hopeful communication that conveys the heroism and bravery a birth mother displays when she places her child with a loving family through adoption. They believe that often the brave act of placing a baby for adoption is viewed in a negative light, when in reality it is a selfless, difficult, and loving act a birth mother can make for her child. Preach it, sisters and I will turn the pages!

I have been blessed to share my own story with them and be a part of a wonderful group of people that can champion and give a voice to thousands of other women who are still trapped by grief, fear and shame. Please click on the button above and check out this amazing organization and be a part of the life-changing work they are doing for adoption and mothers everywhere. You can read my featured story on Brave Love’s blog here.

4 thoughts on “Brave Love: Championing the Cause of the Birth Mom”

You wrote, “Our culture today makes it so easy for a woman to abort; even young teenagers can now get an abortion without their parent’s consent. And what’s worse? The state will pay for it!!! But who pays the emotional price tag? The woman is most always alone in that.”

It is inaccurate to portray adoption as a solution to abortion. Abortion is the decision a woman makes to either continue with or terminate her pregnancy. Abortion is not solely a decision to not have a baby, it is also a decision to not be pregnant. This is a very important distinction to make since the mortality rate of carrying a pregnancy to term in the US is much higher than the mortality rate of abortion. In other words, it is much more dangerous to carry a pregnancy to term for the mother than it is to terminate.

Adoption, on the other hand, is the choice between raising one’s child or relinquishing one’s child to another to raise. This decision is made at a much later date than the decision to abort or not.

Being a first mother myself, it is important to make this distinction.

Who pays the emotional price tag of abortion? I counter your question with another. Who pays the emotional price tag of adoption? The mother and child do. Not only the mother and child, but the entire biological family. Not only the entire biological family that exists when the adoption takes place, but any other children a mother may go on to have, or children an adoptee may have. There are also future spouses to consider. To believe that adoption is the answer to a problem with the conclusion being win-win for everyone involved is offensive and naive.

Thank you for taking the time to visit M2M and comment on my BraveLove post.
However, I think you are taking my quote out of context, because in no way did I EVER say that adoption was win-win for all parties involved. If you took the time to read my story on the BraveLove website here or my FULL story which I published here you would have seen that. As a birth mom, author and speaker, I have had the opportunity to talk with thousands of people on all sides of the adoption spectrum and I don’t think I know one of them who said that their experience was easy, but nearly every one DID say that it was worth it!
Adoption is undeniably giving life a chance, where abortion is not. Nature sadly determines miscarriage, but for those of us who believe that life begins at conception (Psalm 139:13-14) any termination of that life made by human choice is murder; no different than it would be considered by our human courts once the baby is born.
You may call it what you want, but I believe that we are held accountable to a higher standard than choosing what we selfishly want for our bodies and/or what is convenient for our purposes (Matt 12:35-36 and 25:31-40). True love for others is choosing to do what is best for them above our own desires, no matter how unwanted or unplanned it may be. Is it easy? Absolutely not! But can you think of much in this life that is? The loving choices we have to make for family, friends, spouses and the unself-gratifying decisions we have to make for work and home life.
Those selfless decisions will be remembered by a greater judge one day. So, until then I respectfully disagree with you, but thank you for your readership on Made to Mother. And if you are ever interested in telling your story of motherhood here, I would be honored to share it,

You have completely missed my point. There is no choice between adoption and abortion. There is one choice made early in a pregnancy to terminate or carry a pregnancy to term. There is a second choice made later in a pregnancy to raise a child or relinquish a child. You are presuming that every woman going through a difficult time who has considered abortion should carry their child to term and relinquish them for adoption. Instead of promoting adoption as an alternative to abortion, we should be promoting family preservation as an alternative to abortion.

As far as adoption being “worth it”, well you can now say you have spoken with someone who absolutely does NOT think that giving their child away to strangers was worth it. Since I have no contact with my son and he is underage, I have no idea if he thinks that being given away to genetic strangers is worth it.